#representation

...But if we are to say anything important, if fiction is to stay relevant and vibrant, then we have to ask the right questions. All art fails if it is asked to be representative—the purpose of fiction is not to replace life anymore than it is meant to support some political movement or ideology. All fiction reinscribes the problematic past in terms of the present, and, if it is significant at all, reckons with it instead of simply making it palatable or pretty. What aesthetic is adequate to the Holocaust, or to the recent tragedy in Haiti? Narrative is not exculpatory—it is in fact about culpability, about recognizing human suffering and responsibility, and so examining what is true in us and about us. If we’re to say anything important, we require an art less facile, and editors willing to seek it. ↗

— Michael Copperman

#authority #culpability #race #representation #art

Allowing artist-illustrators to control the design and content of statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose. ↗

— Edward R. Tufte

#design #visual-display #design

The more I write stories for young people, and the more young readers I meet, the more I'm struck by how much kids long to see themselves in stories. To see their identities and perspectives—their avatars—on the page. Not as issues to be addressed or as icons for social commentary, but simply as people who get to do cool things in amazing worlds. Yes, all the “issue” books are great and have a place in literature, but it's a different and wildly joyous gift to find yourself on the pages of an entertainment, experiencing the thrills and chills of a world more adventurous than our own. And when you see that as a writer, you quickly realize that you don't want to be the jerk who says to a young reader, “Sorry, kid. You don't get to exist in story; you're too different.” You don't want to be part of our present dystopia that tells kids that if they just stopped being who they are they could have a story written about them, too. That's the role of the bad guy in the dystopian stories, right? Given a choice, I'd rather be the storyteller who says every kid can have a chance to star. - posted at Kirkus Review in post "Straight-Laced Dystopias ↗

— Paolo Bacigalupi

#lgbtq #minorities #representation #teens #writing

A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end. ↗

— Aristotle

#beginning #certain #complete #end #magnitude

I will always find even the worst paintings that attempt some kind of representation better than the best invented paintings. ↗

— Balthus

#attempt #best #better #even #find

If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation. ↗

— Abigail Adams

#attention #bound #care #determined #hold

We gave up on the idea of trying to make the record a good representation of the live performance. ↗

— John Cale

#good #idea #live #live performance #make

The U.S. Military is us. There is no truer representation of a country than the people that it sends into the field to fight for it. The people who wear our uniform and carry our rifles into combat are our kids, and our job is to support them, because they're protecting us. ↗

— Tom Clancy

#carry #combat #country #field #fight

Artists have really never had any representation on Capitol Hill, because it's not the nature of the artist to join together and make a unified presence. Those days kind of died in the '60s. ↗

— Sheryl Crow

#artist #artists #because #capitol #capitol hill

Many counties in Maryland are above the average unemployment rate for both Maryland and the United States. We need representation in Congress who will make creating jobs the No. 1 priority so the people of Maryland can get back to work. ↗

— Andrew P. Harris

#average #back #both #congress #counties